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juushikaTitle: Spring's Awakening: Tragedy of Childhood
Author: Frank Wedekind
Translator and Editor: Eric Bentley
Published: New York: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 2002 (1891)
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 84
Total Page Count: 100,579
Text Number: 288
Read Because: interest in the original play having seen the musical adaptation, from my parents's library
Review: A controversial play published in 1891, not performed until 1906, and adpated into a musical in 2006, Spring's Awakening is the story of children facing the beginning of adolescence within the repressed culture of 1892 Germany. This edition, translated and edited by Bentley, contains a number of mini-essays by the editor on everything from the play's timeline to some of its key themes. This commentary is interesting if artless (and, combined with the sprinkling of typos, begs for an editor), providing an adequate introduction to the play and plentiful food for thought. To those that have seen the Broadway adaptation, the original play will be familiar—and that does no harm to either version. The musical updates (without losing) the play's historical setting and rounds out the rest of the cast (in particular its women), making it more approachable, broadening and highlighting its essential truths: it's a catchy, intense, relevant performance and, with a few exceptions, a successful adaptation. The original play, meanwhile, is deeply invested in its historical setting and the youth of its characters, and offers stronger protagonists foiled by a shallower, utilitarian supporting cast; despite being blatantly controversial it relies on understatement and implication, a combination to gives the reader pause and the story depth.
And where the ending of the musical falters, dissolving into a saccharine musical number that simply shoves aside the play's themes, the original final scene is brilliant: Melchior's conversation with Mortiz and the Man in the Mask is a somewhat more concrete, much more ambiguous, complex conclusion which develops the play's themes—its relationships, social and biological, between life, sexual awakening, and death—while refusing to tie them up in a neat, completed package. This difference may be the reason to prefer, or at least explore, the source material, but familiarity with the musical is hardly the only reason to pick up the play: Spring's Awakening is a swift read (although I'd love the chance to see it performed on stage), but it lingers on the mind. It has its weaknesses, as do Bentley's essays, but the birth of life bringing all its dangers of death, the moribundity of society and the indescribable beauty that arises despite it, approached with irony, humor, and palpable love make Spring's Awakening a success—and it doesn't even need to be a show-stopping musical. I recommend it.
Review posted here on Amazon.com.
Author: Frank Wedekind
Translator and Editor: Eric Bentley
Published: New York: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 2002 (1891)
Rating: 5 of 5
Page Count: 84
Total Page Count: 100,579
Text Number: 288
Read Because: interest in the original play having seen the musical adaptation, from my parents's library
Review: A controversial play published in 1891, not performed until 1906, and adpated into a musical in 2006, Spring's Awakening is the story of children facing the beginning of adolescence within the repressed culture of 1892 Germany. This edition, translated and edited by Bentley, contains a number of mini-essays by the editor on everything from the play's timeline to some of its key themes. This commentary is interesting if artless (and, combined with the sprinkling of typos, begs for an editor), providing an adequate introduction to the play and plentiful food for thought. To those that have seen the Broadway adaptation, the original play will be familiar—and that does no harm to either version. The musical updates (without losing) the play's historical setting and rounds out the rest of the cast (in particular its women), making it more approachable, broadening and highlighting its essential truths: it's a catchy, intense, relevant performance and, with a few exceptions, a successful adaptation. The original play, meanwhile, is deeply invested in its historical setting and the youth of its characters, and offers stronger protagonists foiled by a shallower, utilitarian supporting cast; despite being blatantly controversial it relies on understatement and implication, a combination to gives the reader pause and the story depth.
And where the ending of the musical falters, dissolving into a saccharine musical number that simply shoves aside the play's themes, the original final scene is brilliant: Melchior's conversation with Mortiz and the Man in the Mask is a somewhat more concrete, much more ambiguous, complex conclusion which develops the play's themes—its relationships, social and biological, between life, sexual awakening, and death—while refusing to tie them up in a neat, completed package. This difference may be the reason to prefer, or at least explore, the source material, but familiarity with the musical is hardly the only reason to pick up the play: Spring's Awakening is a swift read (although I'd love the chance to see it performed on stage), but it lingers on the mind. It has its weaknesses, as do Bentley's essays, but the birth of life bringing all its dangers of death, the moribundity of society and the indescribable beauty that arises despite it, approached with irony, humor, and palpable love make Spring's Awakening a success—and it doesn't even need to be a show-stopping musical. I recommend it.
Review posted here on Amazon.com.
